Quint chats with Harold Ramis about ICE HARVEST, GHOSTBUSTERS and much more!!!

Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a little chat I had with Harold Ramis. This interview was a bit weird for me as I had grown up on STRIPES and (even more so) with GHOSTBUSTERS. This was one of those "Holy Shit!" moments in my life. It's fuckin' Egon, man...

I was pleased to find that Ramis was incredibly kind, good-hearted and funny. We talk mostly about his newest directorial outing, ICE HARVEST with John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton and Oliver Platt, however we do dip back into his olden days a bit with talk of VACATION, GHOSTBUSTERS (and talk of GHOSTBUSTERS 3, which has a little bit in there about Venkman's involvement in the proposed 3rd installment that I never heard before this interview) and much more.

We do go into some detail on ICE HARVEST, so if you want to stay 100% pure on the black comedy you might want to bookmark this sucker and come back after you've seen it. For the rest of ya', come on in and give it a read. I think you'll like it.

Ramis and I were introduced at the Driskill hotel here in Austin. Ramis was in town to show ICE HARVEST at the Austin Film Festival as well as do a Q&A for GHOSTBUSTERS at Austin's grand ol' movie house, THE PARAMOUNT THEATER. We decided to look for a quiet place to do the interview, which lead us down the stairs and into the lobby of the Driskill. On the way down the stairs, Ramis looked back at a couple of people standing at the top of the stairs. He looked back to me and confessed an urge to push them down the stairs when we walked past them 10 seconds previous and said it was just a pet peeve of his to see people just standing at the top of a stair case. He said all this with a smile, though, so it didn't come off as creepy.

We ended up sitting down outside the Diskill's cafe and Ramis started talking about his first introduction to Ain't It Cool back in the day. This is the part where I let the transcription speak. The stage has been set! Enjoy!

QUINT: Was it a good review?

HAROLD RAMIS: Yeah.

QUINT: Ah, good. So we're not starting this out uncomfortable! (laughs)

HAROLD RAMIS: That's a good thing.

QUINT: Well, you never know. I was introduced to Spielberg and he was laying praise after praise on the site, then just kind of dropped, "I don't like the early script reviews." He apparently had to rewrite some of JURASSIC PARK 4 to keep some of the twists and turns fresh because of a review on the site.

HAROLD RAMIS: Well, I mean... a lot of bad scripts get made into movies... I have to say.

QUINT: I think this was more about plot points being revealed... However, let's talk about ICE HARVEST a bit. How's the reception been on the movie so far?

QUINT: When's it coming out again?

HAROLD RAMIS: The day before Thanksgiving, Wednesday the 23rd. We took it to the festival in Deauville, France, the (in heavy fake French accent) Festival du Cinema Americain. (laughs) It's all American movies, paid for the studios, of course, but boy... They really liked it. The French were really into it. You know, they thrive on existential despair. It's a way of life over there, isn't it?

QUINT: Well, the movie is a kind of departure from what you're known for. It's much bleaker than your previous work.

HAROLD RAMIS: Yeah, I would say.

QUINT: Is that what attracted you to the story? That it's a different kind of film?

HAROLD RAMIS: Yeah. I mean, I have a serious dark side... Well, I'm not that dark, but I'm certainly serious, but I am attracted to the dark side. You know, I've always been a big fan of the Coen Bros movies and some classic film noir and everything. I'm an existentialist by religion, you know... I'm in training. So, the movie fell just right into my ball park, I thought, as far as if I was ever going to make a film that was genuinely violent and genuinely scary, in a certain way, and really show what happens when you live without values... this is the one. It was so beautifully written.

QUINT: It's very much a showcase for Billy Bob and John Cusack...

HAROLD RAMIS: Yeah, and Oliver Platt. Oliver's great, too.

HAROLD RAMIS: Yeah, me too.

QUINT: But can you tell me a little bit about John and Billy Bob came to the movie?

HAROLD RAMIS; John and I had talked, like, a few times about working together. I had actually acted in HIGH FIDELITY. I shot the first day of the movie as John's father. There were a couple of fantasy flashes in the movie and he imagines his father talking to him. I knew the director Stephen Frears socially and Frears asked me to be in the film and I said, "Sure," so...

John and I had talked before that about me directing something for him, but we never really found the material we agreed on. So, when this one came up I thought, "John would be perfect for this." We talked about it... He's a very thoughtful person. He really wanted to know my ideas, what did I think the movie was about, so I tried to give him a capsule version of it on the phone. He thought about it for probably less than 48 hours and said, "Yes."

QUINT: What about Billy Bob?

HAROLD RAMIS: Billy Bob came in in a second. Two other directors had tried to develop the film... Robert Benton himself, who co-wrote the screenplay. He was going to direct, but didn't want to do it low budget and couldn't come to terms with the studio. And then Dean Parisot (GALAXY QUEST, FUN WITH DICK AND JANE) was going to do it, but then they couldn't cast the film.

Billy Bob had been shown the material in one of those earlier incarnations, so he was already... And I think he had probably been shown both parts, Charlie and Vic, so when I called him and said, "Would you consider playing Vic?" He said, "Yeah." He said yes on the phone immediately. He was ready for it. He just wanted to be in the film. He said some really nice things about my work and I loved him, so...

QUINT: Well, Vic's definitely the showier character. He's not nearly in the movie as much as Charlie is...

HAROLD RAMIS: No.

QUINT: ... but those scenes at his house with his dead wife... (laughs)

HAROLD RAMIS: Wow! Actually, Billy Bob said, "Truthfully, if I had been given my choice of which part to play, I still would have chosen Vic." So, that's where he saw himself in the movie.

QUINT: Alright, now we're up to Oliver Platt.

HAROLD RAMIS: Yeah! (The way it came out it almost sounded like a "yeeawww" but I'm pretty sure it was just an excited "Yeah!" Aren't behind the scenes fun?)

QUINT: I'm curious as to how much of himself is in his character because he seems so perfectly tailor made for the role of Pete. I mean, it almost feels like the role didn't even exist and you just said, "Oliver, why don't you come down and just do whatever you want to do. We'll make you a featured character."

HAROLD RAMIS: Well, in the novel it's not... Well, in the film he plays one of John's best friends who married John's ex-wife. In the novel he was his brother in law, he was the brother of John's ex-wife. But (Richard) Russo and (Robert) Benton I thought made a very wise choice...

But John's character is numb, just numb. Oliver's character, his way of dealing with anguish is to just go careening out of control, crashing from one awful embarrassing situation to another. He's a buffoon. I mean, he's a classic buffoon. It makes such a wonderful contrast to John.

You know, John's the lynchpin of the film. He has all these separate relationships with people. No two of them have a relationship with each other, not that we see anyway. So, it's a series of duets with John and each one has a different kind of tone and texture. The one with Billy Bob is, you know, tense and he's constantly on edge. And the one with Oliver is this bemused sense of watching a guy just fuck up as badly as Oliver continues to fuck up.

QUINT: Did the book end in a similar way to how the movie ends?

HAROLD RAMIS: No, the book ends with Charlie being arbitrarily killed. Charlie's accidentally run over, having nothing to do with the adventure they had just been on.

QUINT: Well, there's something very nice about watching them drive off together...

HAROLD RAMIS: When we tested the film, the audience cheered when Oliver pops up in the car. They really did! It's just unexpected.

But in the ending where he dies, it kinda validates what John's character says in the middle film, when he makes that wonderful speech about his father and his uncle, twin brothers, who lead completely different lives. One moral and exemplary, the other totally dissipated, but they die within 2 days of each other 2,000 miles apart of completely different reasons. So, John's philosophy is it doesn't matter how you live. What's the difference? Same result. And when he dies, it validates that, especially when he dies by a cosmic accident. It sort of does say "It doesn't matter what you do. Why bother? Why bother trying to lead a good life?"

By letting him live... To me, without changing the tone of the film, it flipped the meaning of the film. Now the film says, "No matter what you've done, no matter how badly you've acted or how much you've fucked up, there's a glimmer of possibility of redemption."

I'm the happy existentialist and I come down on the side of possibility. We create meaning for ourselves and through that we redeem ourselves.

QUINT: I also really loved Randy Quaid in the movie.

HAROLD RAMIS: He did a good turn.

QUINT: This is the first time you've worked with him since VACATION, right?

HAROLD RAMIS: Yeah, we couldn't think of who to put in the movie. We read a lot of people, some pretty heavy duty bad guys and British actors... you know, all kinds of people. We were sitting around and I remembered that after I had worked with Randy, he and Dennis did Sam Shepard's play TRUE WEST and Randy played the heavy. Most people knew Randy as kind of the big cuddly doofus from VACATION, but he was so scary in TRUE WEST!

And I know how physically huge he is... This is the tallest cast I've ever seen in a film, by the way.

QUINT: Yeah, I've heard Cusack's a big dude in real life. I've had him described as almost thuggish, which was odd to me... I always think of him from BETTER OFF DEAD days, kind of the skinny guy...

HAROLD RAMIS: Oh no... He's 6'2" at least and he's in good shape. Connie Nielsen's almost six feet, Oliver is 6'3" or four, Randy's 6'4" or five. So, I new Randy could be really scary. When he and Dennis... there's this big fight scene in TRUE WEST when the two brothers fight. I went backstage to visit them and Dennis was really beaten up. Randy would really hurt him when they'd do the scene.

So, I thought... no one's seen scary Randy for quite a long time and he just loved the part. It was pretty cool. And Randy... because the movie's set in Kansas. Randy, you know, is a Texas guy, so he has this kind of sensibility. He understands where these people come from.

QUINT: So, is the acting thing kind of done for you now?

HAROLD RAMIS: Well, no. When people ask me. I never audition. I do when I'm asked.

QUINT: Good, because I thought you were damned funny in ORANGE COUNTY.

HAROLD RAMIS: ORANGE COUNTY! That was fun. I just did one... I did a day in a movie with Zach Braff that's called THE LAST KISS. It's directed by Tony Goldwyn, produced by Tom Rosenberg and written by Paul Haggis. Rosenberg produced MILLION DOLLAR BABY and Haggis wrote it and Haggis, of course, did CRASH.

So, I had one day with Blythe Danner. That was my scene, but it was good. It's a good scene and a good script.

QUINT: You know, I've spent some time with Colin Hanks and I did find him to be a very kissable person...

HAROLD RAMIS: (laughs) He's a doll!! I tell ya'... the line my kids love from that movie, and other kids have actually have said to me on the street... that's, "Sean. You are my same height. That is neat." Kid's actually say that me. (laughs)

QUINT: It was really cool to see STRIPES get a big Special Edition DVD treatment. Do you know when we're going to see VACATION or GROUNDHOG DAY get the same kind of release?

HAROLD RAMIS: They usually wait for Anniversaries to do that. VACATION... I guess the danger is they'll do a box set of all the VACATION films! (laughs) They just did a boxed GHOSTBUSTERS set, which is nice. We did a little promotion of that this summer. I did some TV stuff for that.

Let's see... GROUNDHOG DAY came out in... 92, maybe?

QUINT: '93?

HAROLD RAMIS: '93, yeah, so we missed the 10 year...

QUINT: So we'll have to wait until 2008?

HAROLD RAMIS: I hope not... maybe the 15 year. I still talk more about that film than anything else, although it depends on the audience.

[Seaman sidenote: I just got a press release saying a GROUNDHOG DAY SE with a Ramis commentary and a "documentary" will be released in February '06. Might not be super packed, but it's something.]

QUINT: I have to say, as a kid VACATION and GHOSTBUSTERS were some of my most watched videos... and as a kid I never put it together that Egon directed VACATION!

HAROLD RAMIS: Yeah, Egon was directing before he was acting, however! I was drafted! Ivan Reitman made my acting career!

QUINT: Well, GHOSTBUSTERS is screening at the fest. Are you actually going to sit down and watch the movie again?

HAROLD RAMIS: I thought I would. I was going to go to BEE SEASON, but I saw it at a special screening in Chicago and liked it very, very much. My partners on ICE HARVEST Ron Yerxa and Albert Berger produced BEE SEASON as well and Naomi Foner, the writer of BEE SEASON is a friend also and she's coming in, so I was going to watch that, but now I've just seen that, so I thought I'll watch GHOSTBUSTERS with the audience and see how it plays.

QUINT: I'm telling you... My favorite movie is JAWS and I saw it at the Paramount Theater a few years ago on a double bill called MOTHER NATURE STRIKES BACK with Hitchcock's THE BIRDS and the audience was great. The print was kind of beat up and everything, but there was screaming in the theater. The Paramount has got a little magic in it.

HAROLD RAMIS: Oh, good! I go to Martha's Vineyard in the summer where they shot some of JAWS. I think one of the first big screams in JAWS is when he's diving and the head comes out through the hole in the boat. That boat is beached right near the town of Menemsha. I drive by it all the time.

QUINT: The guy that owns the land and the boat actually took a chainsaw to it this past summer. When he heard JAWSFEST was happening, he knew fans would want to get a close look or cherry pick the boat, which would require them to trespass on his land, so he just destroyed it to keep people from wandering around his property.

HAROLD RAMIS: The year JAWS came out I was working with kind of an alternative video commune called TV-TV and we were covering the '76 Academy Awards for public television and doing a documentary on the awards. My job was to wrangle Bill Murray and shoot comedy stuff outside the Awards. No one knew who he was at the time, this was before Saturday Night Live...

So, we had Bill as the crazed JAWS fan. You know the guy, Carl Spackler, who he does in CADDYSHACK? You know, that guy that (goes into Murray from CADDYSHACK) talks like dis? So, he was a big JAWS fan and he was among the crowd awaiting outside the auditorium. (Back in Murray voice) "Awright, who wants JAWS to win?" You know. And he had every shark toy and JAWS promotional item, you know. (laughs)

QUINT: That sounds awesome! Where is that footage now?

HAROLD RAMIS: Oh, I don't know. TV-TV has it, I'm sure.

QUINT: Can we talk a little bit about your upcoming projects? I read you have something cooking with Owen Wilson.

HAROLD RAMIS: I do, I do, but I can't give away what that's about. We're working with two young writers who work on the show THE OFFICE...

QUINT: The American OFFICE?

HAROLD RAMIS: Yeah. And I've known one of them... he came to me as an intern right after he graduated from the University of Iowa, in the writer's program. His name is Gene Stupnitsky and his partner's name is Lee Eisenberg and they're really funny young guys. I've had this idea for a long time and we're doing it for Columbia Pictures for Owen... Epic. Epic comedy.

QUINT: Do you have anything else coming up?

QUINT: No.

HAROLD RAMIS: Del Close was, like, the most celebrated teacher of improvisation in the country, basically. Murray, Belushi, me, Aykroyd... all these guys worked with him at Second City and then he started his own theater, the ImprovOlympic. He's like the guru of improvisation. In fact he died several years ago and someone has written a book called GURE: THE LIFE OF DEL CLOSE.

He was kind of a guy who taught by life example. His whole mission in life was to shock people and to shake them up. He was like a crazed guru, a nasty guru. He was always creating scenes in public. He was a junkie, he was a hippie, he was with the Hog Farm... this was late '60s stuff in San Francisco. He was in and out of mental institutions. He claimed that he was friends with L. Ron Hubbard and he told him to turn Scientology into a religion. It's like Forrest Gump or Zelig, you know? (laughs) He was everywhere, knew everybody.

He was in the original Second City group with Mike Nichols and Elaine May and all those people.

Anyway, there's a screenplay being written about his last days. He died of emphysema when he was 64 years old. It would make a really interesting movie. It's basically the true story of a young man who was hired to just drive Del around on his errands and make sure he didn't kill himself and stuff, you know. The kid who drove him around wrote a book called GURU. It'd make a really nice movie and a great turn for an actor to play Del Close.

QUINT: I know you're probably sick of it, but the AICN readers would kill me if I didn't bring up GHOSTBUSTERS 3. I know a few years ago it was getting hot and then just seemed to disappear. What's going on with it?

HAROLD RAMIS: Yeah, Danny and I actually played around for a while... Aykroyd had a great concept. He called me and said, "I got it. I got GHOSTBUSTERS 3." I said, "What is it?" He said, "Ghostbusters go to Hell! This is it!" (laughs)

QUINT: So is there a chance that it'll still happen?

HAROLD RAMIS: Well, the script was viable. Dan is the most imaginative person. He went off on a tangent 90% of the movie is a special effect set entirely in Hell, you know. I had a whole different take on it.

Really, it was the business that stopped it. I never thought that the public wanted to see the three of us kind of stuffed into our jumpsuits again. I thought we would introduce three new Ghostbusters, but maybe we'd be around as Senior Ghostbusters, running the company or something, but the real adventure would be... And this was so long ago, we were thinking Chris Rock, Chris Farley and Ben Stiller taking over. That would have worked

And we had the script all worked out. Danny and I had the story and Murray got really... Murray's so cantankerous, you know. Dan called him and said, "Would you be in the movie?" And he said, "I'll be in the movie... but only as a ghost."

QUINT: That would have been awesome!

HAROLD RAMIS: (laughs) It would have been interesting. So, we even created a story around that. In the end, it sounds greedy, but the deal couldn't be made. We as an entity... Me... well, I'm low man on that totem pole deal-wise, but Ivan, Bill, Danny and me couldn't make a deal with the studio. There wasn't enough left for the studio.

And I can't say my heart was really in it, you know... making the third one.

There you have it. How about that Del Close movie? Sounds like it could be a crazy flick. I hope it comes about. And even more important... how about that Bill Murray at the 76 Academy Awards footage! I want to see that so damn badly! I will kiss whoever digs that up and shows it to the world (or just me... I'm not picky). Male or female. Old or young. I'll turn into Richard Dawson for ya'.

And Bill Murray as a ghost hanging around the other Ghostbusters? That would have been genius...

Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chat. I had a lot of fun with it and was even geeking out while transcribing it. Ramis' voice is just so ingrained in my head from obsessive childhood viewings of GHOSTBUSTERS and its sequel... to listen to our 30-odd minute talk playback is surreal to say the least.

Now back to slaving away on that Holiday Shopping Guide. Got a whopper this year. Thanks for the suggestions and keep 'em coming!

the concept was real good but the script reviews werent that great apparently.no chemsitry between the new recruits- ghostbusters 3 will never happen, its more likely that theyll "reimagine" the first one...
; )

CADDYSHACK:- Sandy: Carl I want you to kill all the gophers on the golf course
Carl Spackler: Correct me if I&#39;m wrong Sandy, but if I kill all the golfers they&#39;ll lock me up and throw away the key.
Sandy: Not golfers, you great fool. Gophers. The *little* *brown*, *furry* *rodents*.
Carl Spackler: We can do that. We don&#39;t even need a reason.
ANIMAL HOUSE:- Dean Vernon Wormer: The time has come for someone to put his foot down. And that foot is me. GROUNDHOG DAY (last one, though it&#39;s a temptation, I&#39;m not planning on doing this all day):- Phil: I was in the Virgin Islands once. I met a girl. We ate lobster and drank pina coladas. At sunset we made love like sea otters. *That* was a pretty good day. Why couldn&#39;t I get that day over and over and over...

That Groundhog Day SE has been out on Region 2 for ages. Also, the GB3 "hell" idea was pretty cool - but there was also a script idea involving undead versions of Al Capone, Dillinger and assorted other crime figures from the USA&#39;s past wreaking havoc in New York. That might have been pretty neat.

Both will never get made. Not yesterday, not tomorrow, not next year, and not 10 years from now. I have heard this same talk about ghostbusters 3 longer than the talk about Indy 4 has been going on...never gonna happen.

will be made one day but as misnomer said it would have to be a reimagining of the original with fresh faces and maybe a cameo from one of the original cast members, with the advances in special effects think it could be a big money maker......as long as the script and cast are good as well of course

Not the Chris Rock/Farley bullshit but one more with the originals. It&#39;s just a shame that Bill Murray had to get so damned old well before his time. You know he&#39;s the only thing stopping it. Maybe if they gave him an Oscar or something, he can get his head out of his ass and stop making those pretentious snoozefests where he plays the same sad sack and get back to doing comedy. In that unlikely event a Ghostbusters 3 would be possible. I&#39;m still open to it, all the way until one of them dies.

Look man... if there&#39;s one sequel I wanna see, it&#39;s Ghostbusters 3. But the idea that we would want to see some lame ass new recruit bullshit is just ridiculous. Right now is the perfect time to make that film... but it would have to be about the original group, it would have to move the story forward rather than being a rehash like the first sequel, and Peter Venkman would have to be front and centre. If Chris Rock, Chris Farley or Ben Stiller had gotten their hands on my favourite movie franchise it would have broken my heart. Especially Rock. That guy is a talentless hack. I&#39;m very worried that this &#39;epic comedy&#39; for Columbia might be a revised version of this film. Bill Murray might be less picky if its a vehicle for Owen Wilson... but I for one think he doesn&#39;t belong. He&#39;s a blatant in your face comic. Ghostbusters had more subtlety than that. A great writer... but as a performer he doesn&#39;t fit. Make this film right... let the characters grow up with the fans.... and it would be pure movie magic. Get it wrong and I&#39;m out for blood.

Connie Nielsen makes my pants dance. I wish Hollywood would stop making sequals. It has led to the laziness we&#39;re seeing now (remaking TV shows, making four sequals out of sub-par movies). They wonder why the Box Office is taking it up the ass, why not make something good and original now and then.

You don&#39;t need to recast the orig roles! Just show another group of Ghostbusters in another part of the country who bought into the franchise started by the original three; then you can have Ackroyd show up to congratulate the guys at the end as the Ghostbusters CEO. I nominate Mike Nelson for one of the roles (and writer).

I agree. There could be a new franchise on the west coast. Like in LA or Seattle or something. Then you could have your Winston, Egon, Ray and Venkman cameos without those guys carrying the whole movie. Then bring in Vauhgn, Stiller, Rock and Wilson or whoever as the new ghostbusters.

No body wants to see &#39;new&#39; Ghostbusters. They DEFINATELY DO want to see Senior Ghostbusters. and the story you have is FANTASTIC. Go with it. Make those crooks who run the studio give you what you need to make it happen. Do it now! damnit!

I&#39;m sure that the whole point of the story would be that they were too old and out of shape anyway, so it&#39;d just be accurate. Bring in three young schmucks to play current Ghostbusters and say that the originals are old and rich and live on islands somewhere due to all the fucking money they&#39;ve made from saving New York countless times.

Here&#39;s what you do: make a movie about some people making a movie about The Ghostbusters. Set it in The Ghostbusters world so there is still real ghosts to contend with on the set, where there are the young actors playing the original Ghostbusters and the original cast hanging around as consultants none too happy with the revisions to their history. Add in a slip in which some dangerous books fall into the writers hands, which they put in the movie for authenticity, not knowing what the ritual would unleash--and, bang!, you have the return of Gozer the Gozerian or whatever his name is, who is very angry with the Ghostbusters, both old and new. Then the old guys have to suit up again and the actors playing them have some interesting on-the-job training. Tell Raimus I&#39;ll collaborate with him on the writing for a nominal fee. I am: Fiester.

The way I&#39;ve imagined Ghostbusters 3 for the past little while has been something like this: as a result of an increase in business in the early 90&#39;s following the whole Vigo incident, the Ghostbusters have franchised their name, - as spearheaded by Dr. Venkman. Other Ghostbuster locations open in LA, Chicago, Toronto and London and experience moderate activity. Later on as the millenium approaches, business drops off, and all locations with the exception of New York HQ close their doors. Venkman flies off to the San Fernando Valley to retire with Dana (living comfortably off of previous Ghostbuster merhandising efforts), Winston decides to finally get his doctorate... in medicine and later opens a practice in the Bronx. Egon and Ray both get married to nice ladies and spend their work days holding down the fort at the firehall, doing research, inventing new equipment, and investigating dead ends. When paranormal activity experiences a dramatic spike just as Egon and Ray are contemplating retirement themselves, they decide to hire 3 new employees, fresh out of the Parapsychology dept. at NYU. The two original GB&#39;s stay on board to mentor their new recruits as they try to figure out what it is exactly that consistently draws the paranormal to New York City. (Egon&#39;s previous theory that Dana is a human gateway for the spirit world is debunked... much to his disappointment). Venkman is happy where he is, and Zeddemore is content in offering moral support (and health care), thus leaving most of the training to both Ray and Egon. *** I won&#39;t go into any more detail, but you get the idea. I don&#39;t think that the whole hell idea would work very well now that it&#39;s 7 years after that script was written (I&#39;d HATE to see Ghostbusters film franchise transform into some cg special fx spectacle... the fx in the previous films were always second to the character-driven storyline). It would be great to hire some fresh breakthrough comedic talent from SNL, as such was the case back in 1983, however, the current roster is incredibly weak. (Where&#39;s the SCTV for this generation??) If I were responsible for casting, I would ask Zack Braff and Ryan Reynolds (he would most likely replace the Venkman personality)to come on board. But as for a third, I have no idea. Not guys Jimmy Fallon or Horatio Sanz... those guys just aren&#39;t likeable, (and can&#39;t contain their laughter like real professional comedians). Perhaps other breakthrough talent not necessarily from a comedy troupe, yet talented nonetheless. Another neat idea might be a spinoff tv or animated series based on one of the previous GB franchise locations that existed in the early 90&#39;s, before paranormal activity went dormant. Well... enough of my rant. I&#39;ve obviously thought about this too much over the years. I guess I&#39;ll always be a fan. Hope you like my suggestions... from one Canuck to another. ;)

Really? Do people really want to see a Ghostbusters 3? I always file the Ghostbuster films under, "movies that I thought were hilarious as a kid but don&#39;t hold up". I also have Wayne&#39;s World and Bill and Ted&#39;s Excellent Adventure in that same file. Also, who wants to see morbidly obese Dan A. in this role again?

I always thought Ghostbusters 1 held up really well. Ghostbusters 2 does not; it&#39;s really early 90&#39;s. The classic Bobby Brown song pops to mind and not to mention they use a nintendo key pad to control the Statue of Liberty. The only thing 80&#39;s about the first one is the music, but everything else is fuckin great; effects hold up suprising well and are perfectly campy. Granted I&#39;m biased based off of my username, but you have to love the first one.

Evidnently, not only did Murray appear in the first two, he has some sort of partial ownership of "Ghostbusters" and without his consent, a sequel can&#39;t be made even if he isn&#39;t in it. So he keeps saying "no" because he doesn&#39;t want to run the idea into the ground. Hey, that&#39;s what they say! I suspect that&#39;s why Ramis calls Murray "cantankerous" in his interview.

vince is right, but ditch the rest. plug in patton oswalt, adam corolla, and ice cube. how about all the original ghostbusters cross over and trapped in thier own containment unit for x years and nobody knows how to get them out. containment unit gets compromised and BANG! you have a remake of the 1st movie.

Ben Stein was the "Bueller... Bueller" guy. Del Close was the English teacher. His quote goes like this, "In what... waaaaaaay... does the author&#39;s use of... PRISON [makes jailbars on the chalkboard]...symboliiiize..." (all the while students are nodding off). I&#39;ve seen that movie about 200 times and it keeps getting funnier, EVERYTIME I SEE IT!!!

Wow. It&#39;s so nice to hear from Talkbackers who post only to pick a fight. Were you even alive when Ghostbusters came out? By the way, by verbally attacking Americans you&#39;re only insulting 80% of the AICN demographic. Way to go, Junior.

I don&#39;t care what anyone says. A script involving all three of the originals, joining back up to fight ghosts, would quite possibly be the greatest idea ever. Please, I beg of you studios, and actors: Let go of your pride and please, please make it happen. Having new Ghostbuster characters would be stupid. Only Dan, Bill, and Ramis, bring back Weaver too. Who cares what shape they&#39;re in, that&#39;s the whole fun of it!

What&#39;s his name, the guy from Congo. There was never really a point to the character. He didn&#39;t have any funny lines and no apparent personality. He was on SCTV and I&#39;m sure he was funny in that but Ghostbusters, not so much. They should have named him Token like in South Park.

"You know," I leaned in and whispered, "I&#39;ve spent some time with Colin Hanks and I did find him to be a very kissable person." I reached under the table and caressed Harold&#39;s knee. I could tell he wanted what I wanted by the leaping movement in his pants, yet he held back because I didn&#39;t know who Del Close was and that&#39;s a big fucking turn off. Actually, it&#39;s a crime. Oh well. I feel better now that my dirty little secret is out. I&#39;m confident that AICN Talkbackers will show their loving support, as is their want. And there&#39;s not a shred of doubt in my mind that once I get his special section up and running, Oliver Platt will be mine-all-mine. Ahoy, squirts, indeed....Ahoy, squirts...indeed.

Man... I am glad you guys don&#39;t work in casting. Vince Vaughan as a Ghostbuster?! Does anyone really want to see that? This isn&#39;t about just plugging in the latest &#39;so hot right now&#39; comics and thinking that&#39;s enough. This is Ghostbusters we&#39;re talking about. Personally I think the whole new recruit thing is a really, REALLY bad idea. Any additional cast should only be there to serve the story of the ORIGINAL characters, and should be played by relative unknowns. Oscar Venkman could be in it... but that&#39;s because he would be relevant to the Venkman storyline. I don&#39;t know, maybe Dana should have left or died and now Peter&#39;s a sad old, cantankerous, bastard and Oscar&#39;s studying under him at Columbia. You see, I WANT to see these characters grow old... that&#39;s what would make the whole exercise worth it. If they had to have new recruits to stand alongside Venkman... then I would go in the direction of actors like Peter Sarsgaard or Zooey Deschanel. In other words, not comedians. And seriously, let Wes Anderson direct. This should be a clever film that takes itself seriously, not a laugh a minute CGI fest.

Well said! Finally someone gets it!
If it was made with actors like Vince Vaughan in that "laugh a minute" style (like dodgeball or wedding crashers) we&#39;d end up with another &#39;Evolution&#39;. The reason GB works so well is due to the characters playing it straight. Its a comedy that demands clever diologue delivered in a dry dead pan style.

Dude, judging by your name you&#39;ve watched this movie almost as many times as I have. Glad to see that someone else actually realises why Ghostbusters was such a good movie in the first place. Now go get yourself a job as a hollywood producer before any of these other guys do, okay?

I agree Wes Anderson would be a good choice to direct - as I feel Ivan Riteman lost it big time! Maybe he&#39;s softened too much. Who can say why good directors go bad.
I am a massive fan og GB - though I think the 2nd movie should never have been made - it was too disney like - the original is by FARRRRRR the best.

Or something related? Because it inspired me to go back in AICN time and check out their Sept 11, 2000 article about how GB3 was dead. The article also had a link to Latino Review&#39;s review of the GB3 script. Basically, the concept was amazing, but the follow-through sucked ass. They explain Hell as existing parallel with us, but reality is like a movie reel, and Hell is the dark space in between each slide. The Original Ghostbusters have to go into Hell and somehow get over to Heaven for some reason, which happens to be over the Washington Bridge (or something) and in New Jersey (leading to many many Jersey jokes, no doubt). The New Ghostbusters are behind in our reality monitoring the OGs progress. That&#39;s really as far as the LR guy would go, also mentioning that Venkman would definately return as a ghost. That idea is stupid. New Ghostbusters are ok, but making it a full-blown slapstick would, like Mr Staypuft and benito have been mentioning, totally destroy what Ghostbusters stood for. If Owen Wilson got a hold of it, and made it a Royal Tennenbaums/Rushmore style epic (without the quirky-charm of those movies, of course), it could be fucking amazing. Ryan Reynolds is an incredible choice though, he&#39;s definitely got the making of a future Venkman.

David Lynch&#39;s Return of the Jedi and James Cameron&#39;s Spider-Man. If only we could have seen those. I just watched Return of the Jedi two days ago, and I can only wonder what Lynch would have done with some of the scenes that definately don&#39;t work. I don&#39;t really care for Sam Raimi&#39;s Spider-Man as I think it is very average. But James Cameron would have knocked Spider-Man out of the park. Oh well. Ghostbusters 2 is horrible, why make a third? The original is an all-time classic.

Nov. 17, 2005, 7:13 p.m. CST

by benito

Yeah Ghostbusters 2 is a bit soft. I still enjoy it just for the chemistry those guys have with each other... but it&#39;s a kids movie and is nowhere near as good as the first. My three biggest peaves with it would be the rehash of the original films structure, the piss poor score and soundtrack... and the castration of Winston. That guy was bad-ass in the first one... what happened to you Zeds? Back on topic, Martin Freeman is a fantastic actor. One of my faves. Not sure if he&#39;s a ghostbuster... but he&#39;s superb in the office. Once again I&#39;ll just say that I think if it was done right this movie would be fucking incredible. If they shot it old school, used Bernsteins original music and really took the story somewhere new it could be a work of genius, especially with someone like Anderson at the helm. I actually feel like they could take it in some surprising directions - they could make it really sad in parts if they wanted... there were some great hints at pathos in the first one I always thought.

What is he talking about? Ghostbusters was a phenomenon, with an entire generation growing up on it. Of COURSE we wanted to see them have another go at it. Ghostbusters 2 was a little bit flawed... OK, no problem, learn from your mistakes and make a better third movie! Why did that have to be the end of the world?

Ghostbusters 2 - I hated how slimer was used (and how they updated his look to match the cartoon). Same with JAnine - she was suddenly a clone from the cartoon. I really like the frist half of GB2 - after that it gets soft. The score was bad - and the music was late 80s early 90s crap. I don&#39;t hate it - just wish it was better. I never understood why the ghostbusters logo was changed to be holding up two fingers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Were they meant to know they were in a sequel? I don&#39;t get it - the first logo kick arse!

Starring David Cross, Dave Chappelle, Sarah Silverman and Andy Richte, with that dude who played the Tick as the head of their competition, who are better financed due to the fact that they are reverse engineering ectoplasm for military and consumer applications and then the internet gets possessed. They need Winston Zeddmore though to be their supervisor or the guy running that branch which should definately be New York. I saw Ghostbusters when I was 12 and I went to see it again, in a row, 4 more times, once a night. Ghostbusters fucking rocks. If you guys don&#39;t want to make it, get those broken lizard guys to do it or something, or the Mr Show dudes. Stop Bogarting the concept man. Open source that franchise. Yee haw.

That&#39;s the best suggestion I&#39;ve heard yet, even if it would be impossible to get those actors together, if only for using Patrick Warbuton (Puddy/the Tick) to reprise his Johnny Johnson Newsradio character as the competition.

Damn it! I started laughing to myself cuz I thought you were gonna suggest that they bring Farley in as a ghost. By the way, Horatio Sans is not a suitable replacement. Just cuz he&#39;s fat doesn&#39;t make him funny. As proof, I give to you SNL and his stage work with the Upright Citizen&#39;s Brigade. Sans SUCKS.

why am i the first to mention him as a next generation gb on this board?? you couldn&#39;t have a gb 3 w/o new recruits, it would just not make sense... but the story still needs to focus around the original guys - Ghostbusters is about the characters, not the mythology... and i agree that gb 2 doesn&#39;t hold up at all

I&#39;ve seen Ghostbusters many times and will probably see it many more times. I saw Ghostbusters 2 once in the theater and have never seen it since. And I hate all this talk about, "It&#39;s been so long since they&#39;ve made a Ghostbusters or an Indiana Jones movie, therefore they could never make another good one." That is complete BS. My theory is anything *could* be made good. If a good Ghostbusters 3 could be made then go for it. If not, leave it alone, but don&#39;t let smallminded talkbackers keep you from something good. The fact that the actors are getting old may present a challenge but that just means you go about the whole process in a different way. Necessity is the mother of invention. See it as a challenge to come up with something unique and rise to the challenge. Heck, it might inspire somebody to get in shape. BTW, Winston Zeddemore rules. "Ray, if somebody asks if you are a god, you say, &#39;Yes!&#39;"

...Now more than ever I think. I need this movie. And I need it to be good. I swear to you if I ever get to a respectable level in the film community I will pitch my ideas for this thing to Ackroyd. For more talk on the GB3 issue you guys should go here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087332/board/threads/ It seems like almost everyone wants this damn film to be made.